The Osa Goliath, one of Oceanografia's top ships, which creditors confiscated and are now planning to sell. (Photo: Oceanofrafia)

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Perspectives

Citibank & Pemex Corruption Culture

Citi managers blame $400 million fraud on
Pemex corruption culture.

LATINVEX SPECIALTenacitas International

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO -- In the grand scheme of banking misdemeanors a $400
million fake invoicing fraud at Banamex, the Mexican unit of Citigroup and the
country’s second biggest bank, is not the worst ever to happen. Only two years
ago its rival HSBC was fined $1.9 billion because its Mexican unit laundered
$881 million for the Mexican and Colombian drugs cartels.

But an affiliate, Banamex USA, now also faces a criminal investigation
into its anti-money laundering compliance. This is likely to lead straight back
to Banamex Mexico – whose shortcomings in the fake invoicing fraud, according
to Citigroup, were limited to a handful of staff and the oversight failures of
senior individuals. There have been 12 dismissals and further sanctions in the
form of docked pay and bonuses are expected as investigations, including by the
Securities and Exchange Commission, continue.

In Mexico, Banamex is trying its best to paint the incident
– false invoices presented by Oceanografía, a company serving state oil giant
Pemex – as an isolated episode of malpractice, even though the fraud had been
going on apparently unnoticed for more than three years. But it is more bad
news for a giant company that even insiders admit has been plagued by image
problems for over a decade – including the Parmalat affair, rigging of
benchmark interest rates, and cancellation of its Japanese private banking license.

News of a rogue trading scandal at Banamex in Mexico, in
which two bond traders were fired, also came to light this year, although it
happened in 2013. Questions about Banamex’s internal controls led to Manuel
Medina Mora, Mexican co-president of Citi, having his compensation cut: the US
government found its money laundering controls lax and Citi promised to take
action.

Yet Banamex Mexico managers feel unfairly maligned. They
admit there was negligence and that the bank failed to spot a plethora of
warning signs in the fraud in which shipping and oil services company
Oceanografía allegedly presented more than 200 false receipts for work not
supported by orders from Pemex dating back to 2010. But they deny an institutionalized
culture of contempt for proper practice.

Instead, they blame Pemex. If corruption were not such an
accepted fact of life at Pemex, the bank believes, the case that erupted when
Citi announced a $235m hit to 2013 profits as a result of the affair could
never have happened. Bank officials paint Banamex as the victim and pointedly underscore
that while Citi has fired staff and taken a further $165m first-quarter charge,
at Pemex it is business as usual.

The alleged fraud has triggered ongoing investigations
against Citigroup on both sides of the border, including in the US by the Department
of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and US attorney’s office in
Manhattan. In Mexico, the banking regulator has wrapped up its own
investigation although not published its findings or penalties, and the
possibility exists that a probe by the Mexican attorney general’s office could
turn into criminal proceedings against some of those dismissed. Some have
already been called in for questioning, according to one source close to the
investigation.

Banamex’s own suspicions center on a former employee,
whose wife worked for Oceanografía and who left the bank to work there. He is
considered the brains behind the fraud, and is suspected of having doctored
internal procedure manuals to enable cash to be advanced on the basis not only
of invoices, but also of notices of work, that is, documents detailing
purported contracts won by Oceanografía.

Pemex’s reputation as a cast-iron credit risk – it is
Mexico’s biggest company, supplying a third of the national budget – appears to
have blinded Banamex to what should have been obvious. Some of the forged
invoices, according to sources, were almost indistinguishable from the real
thing, replete with stamps. However, others were crude – or blasé – documents
drafted on Word. Inside Banamex, the sheepish realization is that money flowed
as if on a merry-go-round. Oceanografía was a major client in Banamex’s
factoring business, despite having a reputation as a late payer to its
bondholders, suppliers and workers and having been investigated by Congress.

But while Banamex feels it is being forced to wear
sackcloth and ashes, with more tawdry details likely to emerge and the threat
of more sanctions, it is “surprised” at the lack of a mea culpa from Pemex.

Corruption is rife at Pemex and other contractors are
commonly involved in invoicing scams that never come to public attention,
according to industry sources. This suggests that Oceanografia somehow fell afoul
of the authorities and Banamex was collateral damage – but what may have
happened, and why, remains unclear.

Pemex has been circumspect about the affair, announcing
new procurement procedures but deftly ducking the heat. Oceanografía had a
40-year relationship with Pemex and its main exploration and production
subsidiary, Exploración y Producción (PEP). Between 1999 and 2013, Oceanografía
won more than 160 competitive bids for services worth more than $2 billion,
making it the main contractor for Pemex during the administrations of
presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, both of the Partido Accion Nacional
party (PAN).

Instead, Pemex is focusing on Mexico’s historic energy
reforms that are set to open up oil and gas exploration to private investment
for the first time in more than three-quarters of a century, under the
government of President Enrique Peña Nieto, of the Partido Revolucionario
Institucional party (PRI).

The state oil behemoth already has its work cut out to
dump decades of accumulated bureaucracy, becoming fitter and faster at learning
new technology as it strives to enter into a brave new world of competition.
And the government has vowed the utmost transparency in tendering oil and gas
exploration and production licenses ahead. But Pemex needs to prove that murky
episodes like that involving Oceanografía have been consigned to the history
books. And that Pemex managers will be as contrite as those at Citi.